Microsoft's WARP Provides a Fast Software Version of DirectX 10

Posted on Nov 28, 08 10:58 AM PDT

A recent update in the Microsoft developer network (MSDN) mentions WARP10, a new feature that stands for Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform. It also sounds like a trekky reference to a theoretical maximum speed... Anyway, WARP is a software implementation of DirectX 10 and 10.1 that is supposedly fast enough to replace basic (Intel integrated) graphics processors. Most computers come with some form of graphics-acceleration, but this means that even non-accelerated platforms will be able to run Vista's Aero interface and entry-level graphics applications

In the past, Microsoft software implementation of DirectX was only used as a very slow "reference" for developers, meaning: "if your hardware produces something that's different from the reference, you have a bug". Warp was built to be actually be useable in by consumers. WARP is not built to replace GPUs, but to fill the gap for older or weaker hardware in relatively low-performance situations. Overall, it's quite a positive move from Microsoft.

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